Point-of-sale (“POS”) terminals, such as cash registers, are used in a wide variety of businesses for performing such processes as calculating the total price of a purchase (goods or services) and calculating the amount of change due to a customer. Some POS terminals furthermore track purchases made and adjust a database of store inventory accordingly. As described in the parent application of the present application, Patent Application Ser. No. 08/920,116, entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING SUPPLEMENTARY PRODUCT SALES AT A POINT-OF-SALE TERMINAL, filed on Aug. 26, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,119,099, a customer at a POS terminal is offered an “upsell” in exchange for an amount of change due. The POS terminal determines an upsell in dependence on a purchase of the customer, and also determines an “upsell price” (the amount of change due) based on the purchase. For example, a customer purchasing a first product for $1.74 and tendering $2.00 may be offered a second product, perhaps at an attractively discounted price, in lieu of the $0.26 change due. The upsell price, $0.26, thus depends on the purchase price $1.74; the upsell price is not fixed like most conventional prices for items.
As described in the aforementioned parent application, offering upsells in exchange for change due has significant advantages. For example, customers are typically adverse to handling change, and would welcome the opportunity to dispense with it. In addition, the customer derives satisfaction from a sale at an attractively-low price.
Typically, a business may have several different upsells that may be offered. In fact, for any particular purchase, it may be possible to offer several different upsells. The particular upsell that is actually offered to a particular customer may depend on a number of criteria associated with the purchase, such as the change amount, the time of day and the items purchased. Since there may be so many possible upsells to offer any particular customer, it may be difficult or impossible to determine which upsell that customer is likely to accept.
In addition to the difficulty of selecting an upsell to offer, offering an upsell may in some circumstances require time. However, there is no guarantee that the time spent offering an upsell will prompt the customer to accept the upsell and, consequently, provide revenue to the offeror. Thus, many offered upsells will be unaccepted, thus resulting in a waste of time and effort. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to eliminate the uncertainty that is inherent in offering upsells.